Come photograph Yosemite National Park!

Hey photographers and students!  I'm doing a photography workshop in Yosemite National Park next month...and YOU are invited!  :)

Of all the places I've been, Yosemite remains the top of the list.  It's not just because I grew up backpacking and nordic skiing there; I really think there's something inordinately special about the place.  You see the hand of our Creator in such a beautiful balance: his majestic power in the towering granite cliffs and crashing waterfalls, as well as his grace and beauty shining through delicate frost designs on the pine needles or soft sunrise colors.  It's a stunning, intriguing, awe-inspiring, and completely one-of-a-kind place.

We'll cover composition for landscape, exposure and HDR, sunrises/sunsets and star trails (weather permitting!), do some post-processing in Lightroom, review/share/critique each day, and have plenty of random adventures.  :)  Most of all, we'll focus on hands-on time as we explore the magnificent Yosemite Valley with our cameras!

Cost and schedule details are still being worked out, but I'll post those soon.  Register early and you'll get a discount!

 

If there's anything I can teach you about landscape, it's to expect the unexpected -- we can predict a lot of things, but ultimately we're at the mercy of the outdoors.  It's an adventure with your camera!  And while I can't see into the future, I'm pretty sure I can guarantee you that we'll have experiences like Ansel Adams talked about: "Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter."

So when is it? Well, here's where you can help me out!  I'm looking at either February 25-28 or March 4-7, and I'll go with whichever gets the most votes.  Just comment here, email me at kelsey@photographybykelsey.net, or message me on Facebook.  Any other questions?  Let me know and I'll do my best to answer them!

- Kelsey

Discovering beauty...
 

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Big Basin Redwoods with my FPC Berkeley friends

It seems that I'm proving the truth of that saying, "The faster I go, the behinder I get"!!  ;)  I love my job -- lots and lots -- but sometimes I schedule my life as if days were 48 hours long.  ;)  I hate to sound like a broken record (some of you are too young to know what that is anyway) but I'm working hard catching up on stuff.  And trying not to kill myself in the process.  And aforesaid stuff is getting done, slowly but surely (uh, with emphasis on the "slowly"!).  :P

So.  Speaking of trying not to kill oneself.  In the midst of such busy-ness and over-zealous scheduling, I think we have to be even more careful than ever to feed our souls with beauty, rest, and time with Jesus.  So, I went to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park recently for a couple days of camping with some friends from First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley.  It was a blast!  My camera (i.e. my right hand) came along, and had some fun right there with me...and I leave you to judge the results.  :)

Moonlight and stars above the meadow

We ate well.  Like, the kind of food a lot of people don't even normally get at home, and here we were, camping!  Brett, you're an amazing camp chef!

Saturday's breakfast: crepes.

Fresh orange juice

Brett coaching Rachel on crepe-flipping.  She took to it like a natural.  (After some rather interesting landings, of course...hehe...)

Two at once?  No problem.

 

Rachel, you did a great job!

Koob on the beach.  I've never played Koob before.  Neither had most of us, I think.  Never knew it was so much fun to try and knock down little 3x3" blocks of wood! 

Our opposition, planning their next move... (Buuuut...guess who won...??)

Jessica, an expert marksman

WE won.  Somehow I neglected to get a team photo, but here's our MVP!

Lisa, roasting bacon over the fire...it turned out great, btw...

Evans and his guitar

Ahi!  Yummm!

I love huge campfires that big groups can gather around like this.  Good times, friends!

Had to do a quick star-trail shot, of course.  I think it came out pretty well...just in time, because the moon was about to appear over the horizon.

Some slightly goofy light-painting followed.  ;)  Here's Rachel:

And some of us girls trying to put on our band faces (epic fail, but we had fun trying)

Tim's very cool YMCA

Sunday breakfast was omelettes.  Here Rachel and Jess are preparing to attack an omelette of Biblical proportions.

Friends :)

Brett and Erica, I really enjoyed getting to know you!

Evans led some wonderfully thought-provoking discussion on desire.  (Hey Evans, I still want those notes!)  The last Bible passage he left us to ponder was from Psalm 37.

I've always loved Psalm 37, and the following verses have been very meaningful lately too.  Here are verses 4-6:

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in him, and he will act.

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,

and your justice as the noonday.

May you delight yourself in him today...and may he give you the desires of your heart.

- Kelsey Schweickert

Discovering beauty...

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The latest Yosemite star trails...

Here are a few more images from my trip with Leah...including the promised favorite star trails shot of the night.  :)

First, here's the cabin where we stayed.  (It was supposed to be a canvas tent cabin, but we got a surprise free upgrade to this!  A gift from the Lord!)

And here is my favorite star-trail shot of the evening, with El Capitan in the foreground (can you see the climbers here and there? I was glad I'm not them...).  :)  This was a 25-minute exposure.

I'll leave you with a great Bebo Norman song that I think about when I look at mountains and stars and think of my Creator...hope you enjoy it now.

I will lift my eyes to the Maker
Of the mountains I can't climb

I will lift my eyes to the Calmer

Of the oceans raging wild

I will lift my eyes to the Healer

Of the hurt I hold inside

I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes to You

God, my God, let Mercy sing

Her melody over me

God, right here all I bring

Is all of me

'Cause You are and You were and You will be forever

The Lover I need to save me

'Cause You fashioned the earth and You hold it together, God

So hold me now

- Kelsey Schweickert
 
Discovering beauty...
 
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Yosemite with Leah

Wow, this poor blog has been neglected lately...this week has been VERY full and I've barely had time to breathe!  My friend Leah came to California for a workshop by Dane Sanders, and she and I took a quick overnight trip to Yosemite.  It was beautiful there, as always...we came away with great photos, good memories, and hearts more grateful than ever for God's goodness to us.

We got there Sunday just in time to catch a lovely rainbow in Bridalveil Falls before the sun went down.  Such a sweet reminder of God's promises.

That night we did star trails...my "official" star trail shot of the evening is coming later, but for now, you can enjoy this one.  :)  It was one of a few 30-second shots before a couple longer exposures of 30 minutes.

One more long-ish exposure of Bridalveil, from just after sunset...love the way the water streams down so gently over the hard cliff face.  It's so soft and creamy.

It was great hanging out with you, Leah!  :D  Thanks for being an awesome friend!!

I'm heading out to pick up my friend Rob at the airport, then we're going to the rehearsal for Julie and Dan's wedding tomorrow...can't wait to photograph these fun people!  :D

- Kelsey Schweickert

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"When I look at the heavens..."

Last month, while we were backpacking in Yosemite, I braved the dark and cold and mountain lions to shoot some star trails (well, okay, I didn't see any mountain lions, but you never know, right??!).  That's where you leave your camera's shutter open for a long time (I've done anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour and a half), and in the finished image, you can see how the stars make streaks across the sky as the earth slowly turns.  Here's the view from our campsite by Ten Lakes...

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor." (from Psalm 8)

The stars are just incredible in the Yosemite high country. When I'm up at elevations of 9 or 10 or 11,000 feet, there's just a lot less air in the way! I look up in awe every time we go and I never cease to be amazed at how many pretty twinkling lights there are up there. And each of them is a massive ball of heat that would fry you if you got very close at all (the Sun, for instance, is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). What a magnificent display of power and beauty!

"He tells the number of the stars; He calls them all by their names." (Psalm 147)

Have you ever thought about that? There are somewhere around 300 billion stars in the Milky Way. 300,000,000,000 stars. And He has names for them all?  Sometimes I have trouble calling my two sisters the right names! He knows billions of stars' names? Not to mention that he MADE them all?!?

When I look at the myriad sparkling lights in the dark sky, they seem to say, "It's okay...He made us...he knows each of our names...and you are far more important to Him." Not only is He powerful enough to make all that, He is good. And with all that goodness, He is watching over you and me.

So, here's something to think about...just a few verses earlier, that same psalm says,

"He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds."

Each of us has "broken" places in our hearts.  Places that need healing.  Sometimes we don't realize just where each of those places are, till something painful happens.  We fail, or people hurt us, or hard times come.  Sometimes something little, like a harsh word or a speeding ticket.  Sometimes something big like a business failure or losing a child.  But that's where we have an opportunity to invite Jesus into the situation. He can heal that broken place in our heart.  All you have to do, to know that he's capable of that, is to look up into the night sky and see his power lavishly displayed.  (Maybe that's why he made it so we could see the stars just about every night?)

 
May you know his power in your heart today.

- Kelsey Schweickert

Discovering beauty...

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